Top 3 things I can do to show my wife love and change?

motojunky

Member
Hey all,

So as I was able to destroy the relationship with my wife through my selfishness .... I want to do whatever I can to rebuild my wife and our relationship.

So please share with me the top 3 things as a partner you found to be helpful, encouraging and showing that there is right change.

Moto
 

Erasmus_xlt

Active Member
Thanks for the question @motojunky.  I look forward to the answers here.

I am in the process if trying to restore my relationship with my wife also.  What I am doing now is hard work:
1.  Stop all porn viewing and access to it
2.  Accountability partner
3.  Seeing a professional counselor

All of that helps her to have confidence I am not doing all of this on my own.  Plus having other people I am accountable to is added insurance.  Additionally, I am:

4.  Learning to be empathetic to her needs and desires
5.  Learning to be intimate beyond sexual/physical aspects
6.  Helping her more
7.  Be a person of integrity by being more open and honest

These things I do are to help me learn what real love looks like.  My wife has been devastated by my betrayal.  It takes time to get through that.

I would love to know any other suggestions by partners on what it takes to restore a relationship ravaged by porn.
 

Objectified1

Active Member
That's hard. I will give you a list as best as I can. While he was into PMO, he was obviously very selfish and not very attentive. From all this I was left feeling very uncared for. In the last 11 months one week stands out very much. He was very caring and thoughtful towards me all week. He sacrificed his comfort and what he wanted for me. One day he came home from work (I did not expect this of him or ask) ate supper and then went about cleaning my yard for me. I had been wanting the yard cleaned for quite sometime. He works hard at work and he works outside. It was hot out that day so I knew he must've been beat when he got home. Instead of doing his usual sitting on the couch and relaxing (as I would expect on a day like that), he went out of his way to do something for me. He put me first. All those years of PMO, I feel like he never even cared how I felt. I barely existed to him. It seems so small and trivial but I felt so much love for him when he did that. He didn't just put me first when it was convenient and easy, as his usual. He put me first even though he was beat. He put me and my happiness above his comfort. He built flower boxes for me, even though he had to take time away from working in his garage to do it. He put me first. Do the opposite of what you've been doing while PMOing. What would you do if you were dating? How would you try and impress her?
Some other things he has done that have helped a lot
  - He waits till the kids are in bed to shower after work (depending on how grungy he is, I'm not totally unreasonable hehe)
- He leaves his phone at the door
- He answers my texts almost all the time, even if its inconvientent - he gives me priority 
-He sets two alarms in the am before work, one 15 minutes before get up time to cuddle.
- If we are out and I am insecure (someone dressed inapporpriate or etc) he is very attentive to me (holding my hand, hugging me, kissing me)
In short, put her first, show her she is important. Give her priority.
 

Emerald Blue

Well-Known Member
1 Don't watch porn or any sexually explicit material
2 Don't lie about your porn use or viewing behaviors and answer her questions as truthfully as you can
3 Be prepared to be accountable by not hiding or deleting your internet history

That's just to start with, the bare minimum of conditions that must be met. As objectified1 says, you have to pay your wife the attention that she has missed out on over the years. Most importantly, try and empathise with her, ask her how she feels and help her to feel better about herself and her situation. If she's anything like me, she will have her own internal struggles with self esteem and body image. We all read that "it's not personal" but most women feel that their sexuality has been devalued by their partners porn addiction.

Also, give her the time and space to cry and sometimes to vent. Remember, you probably didn't see porn as a threat to your relationship but she certainly will. Try and put yourself in her position, or that of a man whose masculinity has been replaced by battery operated toys and images of pretty  boys. Imagine finding yourself locked out of the bedroom whilst she gets off on some buzzing gadget and then tells you she was folding away her clothes, and imagine this scenario going on for years. Would you feel that this woman desired you? Would you trust her? Even after it had been going on for a long time and she had shown no sexual interest in you? Would you feel emasculated? That might give you some indication of how it feels for us.

 
1) Honesty and Transparency


Give her the truth about everything if you haven't already. Consider formal disclosure with a therapist if there is anything major she doesn't already know about. To move forward after all the lies that PA creates, you have to be an open book and to do that you need to have a clean slate with everything on the table so she knows what she has been dealing with. There may be moments of your past together that she has been questioning all along, this will finally give her the closure she needs to begin healing. Also, if you slip up from here on out, you have to tell her. Don't leave it for her to find out on her own, trust me, she will and you will be set farther back than you would have if you had just told her in the first place. 90% of the betrayal most spouses feel is from being lied to, no more lies.

2) Work on Yourself

For her to see change you need to actually change! Being active on here is a sign that you are already doing this! Get a therapist, get an accountability partner, and write a journal and keep daily logs of your emotions and notes of your day. Most of all though, you can't just be doing this for her. If you are "changing to keep her" then you will fail. You need to find reasons to change for yourself. Once you dedicate yourself to being clean for your own personal reasons your behavior will change and she will notice. In the first few weeks of the reboot I could tell that my husband was simply doing it to keep me. I knew that this "selfless" motivation was actually the most selfish one he could have found and it kept me up at night with worry that he would never come around and we would soon be divorced. A few weeks later he woke up and realized that there were plenty of reasons to do this for himself, and that was the turning point that gave me hope.

It wasn't in his words it was in his actions after he made that decision to change for himself. I'm sure you could ask him about that and he'd be happy to share, his journal is in the men's 30-39 section, rebootrapp. Once you commit to changing for yourself you will change for the better as a person and she will absolutely pick up on it. I have so much more respect for my husband now, despite now knowing what he did behind my back in the past, than I did before I knew and he was hiding everything. He has taken charge, is getting things done, is patient, kind, and unselfish. He is far more masculine now than he's ever been before, I don't know how else to describe it. Lets be honest, putting things off, not taking the lead, being impatient and selfish and beating off to images of women are considered traits of an acne covered teenager that lives under another man's roof, not those of a man. Become a true man and you will find your wife will begin to look at you in a new way, and have a hell of a lot more respect and  desire for you!

3) Pursue Her

Think back to your dating days, what was that like? Did you open doors, take her on dates, get dressed up for her, listen, consider what she wants? There's a good chance you did, and if not then now is the time to start. This will come much more naturally after step two above because you will be far less selfish and will pick up on her desires far more readily. Pursuing her shouldn't be limited to sexual advances though. You need to win her over through friendship as well. Make her laugh again, be her confidant. Be there for her emotionally because almost every women here on the PA partners forum can tell you how draining it has been being with a PA who simply wasn't there for her, cut off emotionally with his head in some porn cloud daze while you self medicated all your emotions with this numbing garbage. Think about things she wants, and if you don't know then ask her!!! My husband actually asked me the other day if I wanted us to find him some sexier underwear for him to wear (he only really wears Hanes boxer briefs and they are getting a bit old!) I was floored that he'd even think to ask me that, he's always been of the mentality that I should have all the sexy lingeriewhile he just sits back in his birthday suit. I truly believe that is one of the easiest comparisons you can make between real life and porn, he had been the watcher and I was there for the entertainment...as evidenced by my three drawer mini dresser stuffed full of lingerie. Another interesting thing from all of this is that I don't dip in to that mini-dresser now during our recovery (because it isn't just your recover as the PA if you are married) since I'm afraid it will slow healing on his part by keeping him wired to visual novelty and will impede my progress as it will keep me in the mindset of having to preform and compete with porn. The interesting thing is that while that is put aside, I am feeling more confident and realizing that I deserve to look pretty for me, so I bought nice new, every day matching sets of bras and panties for me that he loves. It's not over the top sexy, not just for him, but in a way shows how much healthier we both are mentally now as we continue on our recovery.
 

motojunky

Member
Thank you for the responses ... I appreciate the vulnerability and honesty. I am encouraged through your willingness to help. I will take your valuable advice and seek to apply it with my wife. As I have done some of these things its good to look and see her response to them. Again - Thank You
 

balanced

Active Member
I appreciate this thread...I'm in the same place as Erasmus and rebootrapp, and am finding the path to a great renewed relationship through the commitment, focus, self-improvement, openness, availability and honesty being described here.

It's affirming to read what you each have written, thanks
 

Gracie

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
The first rules we put in place were:

Go to bed at the same time and in the same bed. (no couch)
No getting up if we can't sleep.  We turn light on and read. (small lamp)
We touch when we talk about the porn and relationship.  (feet, hand, arms just touching.  Holding is okay too)

We also put our hands on each other's heart.  Very comforting and connecting.
We sleep naked (I read somewhere, not associated with PA that couples should do this to stay connected,  It helped and worked.
I am a pull away and run person.  The touching was harder for me.  I knew if I did not do it though, I would walk away from our marriage.
 
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